User access to physical assets is a growing need in commerce. The mobility economy is being shaped by lower levels of ownership of physical assets. Personal transportation is being shaped and will continue to evolve into lower levels of vehicle ownership, with passengers gaining access to ride sharing or mobility assets by utilizing their mobile devices to schedule and dispatch mobility assets. Users of mobility services still require physical exchange of information between the human driver and passenger in order for the passenger to access the mobility service. The advent of SAE level 5 autonomous vehicles will drive further advancements in personal transportation when mobility providers utilize driverless vehicles on private and public roadways. Advancements in personal access to these driverless mobility services will be needed.
Transformations in the delivery of goods will drive the need for innovation in access. Presently, the package delivery industry relies on physical or electronic signatures to validate the delivery of certain parcels. Companies like Federal Express and United Parcel Service have made innovations in the dedicated hardware and software needed to collect signatures from parcel recipients and rapidly track the transfer of goods through their logistics systems. The physical transfer of goods, however, still requires the human parcel deliverer and the recipient to interact via the use of the dedicated hardware platform for collecting and routing signature information and the subsequent transfer of possession. Federal Express, UPS, and Amazon are making rapid advances in the automated delivery of packages. The use of short-range Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is being utilized for package delivery with rapidly-growing success. These companies are likely heading toward utilizing driverless over-the-road vehicles for package delivery in the not-too-distant future. One of these weaknesses of these driverless and pilotless systems is their inability to replicate the deliverer-to-receiver interface for collecting and processing signatures to validate the receipt of the package and the transfer of possession. Advancements in logistics are required when the human is eliminated from the delivery side of the transaction.
Real estate owners will gain access to their homes or commercial properties via physical interfaces like keys and locks or access cards and cards readers, typically in concert with password-required access to a security system for the enablement and disablement of the security features. Temporary users of real estate, in order to gain access to the asset, will need to acquire the key or access card from the owner via a physical interaction or through a lockbox. Both of these methods require a dedicated physical component and a means to gain access to the physical component. Advancements in access protocol are needed to allow broader access to physical real estate assets without human interaction and without the need for application-specific hardware.
Vehicle owners will gain access to their possessions via interfaces like keys and locks or key fobs and fob readers. Temporary users of vehicles, in order to gain access to the asset, will need to acquire the key or fob from the owner via a physical interaction or through a lockbox. Both of these methods require a dedicated physical component and a means to gain access to the physical component. Advancements in access protocol are needed to allow broader access to physical vehicle assets without human interaction and without the need for application-specific hardware.
According to several sources in the access and authentication market, there is a trend moving away from authentication schemes relying on ‘what is known’, such as a password, to ‘what is present’, such as a key fob or fingerprint. With passwords being such a major culprit in hacking schemes, ‘what is present’ authentication factors are fast becoming much more relevant. Due to their features, mobile communication devices can provide a useful ‘what is present’ authentication factor. They can be used for second-factor authentication, or can replace ‘what is known’ factors (passwords) completely as a single-factor authentication device.
Several methods and systems are available in the art that attempt to provide access to systems or data with the use of mobile communication devices. U.S. Pat. No. 9,576,255 provides controlled access to events, premises, transportation, and the like by providing a ticket to a ticket holder by defining rights associated with the ticket, determining the device to be associated with the ticket, creating a link that represents the ticket, providing the link to the ticket holder, and providing a charge to the ticket based on the geographic location of the associated device. U.S. Pat. No. 9,565,530 teaches techniques for allowing a mobile device to obtain access to location services from one or more computing devices that have been authorized for use.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,563,908 teaches a system that utilizes a circuit to receive transaction data and produce transaction summary files for the purchase of software applications. U.S. Pat. No. 9,554,279 teaches a system of one or more mobile devices for accessing secure data where the devices include circuitry for a passcode scanner that scans for the user currently using each mobile device connected to a secure network where the mobile device contains an access requestor and the server validates an authorized area of authentication.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,554,279 teaches a system of one or more mobile devices for accessing secure data where the devices include circuitry for a passcode scanner that scans for the user currently using each mobile device connected to a secure network where the mobile device contains an access requestor and the server validates an authorized area of authentication. U.S. Pat. No. 9,554,277 teaches a method for managing access rights by receiving, via a mobile device, information from a passive tag located at an entrance to an area, wherein the information includes identification information for the entrance.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,554,267 teaches a processor circuit on a server configured to receive a data packet request from an entity that provides an online service to a mobile device, the data packet request comprising a network identifier for the mobile device. U.S. Pat. No. 9,552,466 teaches a physical access control system protecting a secure asset that uses wireless communication between a reader of the physical access control system and a mobile device to establish the proximity of the mobile device to the reader and establishes a credential at the mobile device for operating the physical access point. In a subsequent transaction, the system generates a second credential at the mobile device that is different from the first credential.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,548,982 describes a memory and processor system that utilizes a mobile device to authenticate access to a service by performing authentication via a proxy server. U.S. Pat. No. 9,544,853 teaches a vehicle communication and access system with a previously paired mobile device and a vehicle near field communication (NFC) device coupled to the control unit. The system utilizes wireless communications to establish if the mobile device is at or below the threshold battery power level.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,524,502 describes an apparatus that manages mobile coupons with wireless communication between a mobile coupon application on a mobile device and a coupon management module configured to provide an indication of an impending change at the user interface. U.S. Pat. No. 9,520,939 teaches an access authorization device used to control access to an area by utilizing a sequence of hash values and a means for determining if the first hashed value was generated from a mobile wireless communications device authorized to control the access device. The access device then sends an access command to the mobile device to authorize control of the system by the mobile device.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,514,589 describes a secure short-distance-based communication and access control system to a restricted area whereby the sub-locations of the access control area have physical barriers and at least one beacon for each sub-location. The system authenticates mobile devices that are approved for access and validates, via the location beacons, whether the approved device is in the sub-location. Having validated the device and the location, the system energizes an actuator driver circuit to invoke the opening or closing of the physical barrier for the sub-location. U.S. Pat. No. 9,508,207 teaches a method of providing access to a premises by creating a credential to be used to unlock an access control device, identifying a device to be used to present the credential to the access control device, defining a dynamic link to provide the credential to the device, enabling the dynamic link by activating the link so that it is a valid link, presenting the credential to the access control device and to the identified device via the dynamic link, and unlocking the access control device when the credential is presented by the identified device.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,503,260 teaches a security token configured to facilitate access to a remote computing service via a mobile device external to the security token by use of a Near Field Communication (NFC) interface, a smart card integrated circuit, and a smart card applet stored in and executable by the smart card integrated circuit, wherein the smart card applet is configured to support a cryptographic challenge-response protocol executable by the mobile device, wherein a plurality of credentials for the cryptographic challenge-response protocol are maintained inside a single security token. U.S. Pat. No. 9,483,631 describes a reader of a physical access control system associated with a physical access point of a secure asset, wherein the reader is configured to perform operations of transmitting an interrogating radio frequency (RF) signal to a mobile device comprising a first credential that is unique to the reader. Furthermore, the system receives, from the mobile device, an RF response to the interrogating RF signal with a second credential that is unique to the mobile device, and controls the physical access point to permit or deny a holder of the mobile device access to the secure asset based on the RF response to the interrogating RF signal.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,479,339 teaches a method performed by a host server of instructing a mobile communication device to obtain a digital certificate from a certificate authority. The method further instructs receiving a signed certificate request message that contains a public key generated by the mobile communication device, the certificate request message having been signed with a private key generated by the mobile communication device, with the public key and the private key forming a public-private key pair. Lastly, the method concludes by obtaining a digital certificate signed by the certificate authority and pushing the digital certificate to the mobile communication device. U.S. Pat. No. 9,443,365 teaches a method for utilizing Bluetooth communication between a mobile device and a reader device in response to the mobile device being in a connection zone relative to the reader device. The method includes the capability of the mobile device to sense velocity, acceleration and GPS location information for the device to determine if the mobile device is in the activation zone of the reader device.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,924,712 teaches a method for authenticating a transaction by reading an image comprising a matrix barcode encoded with transaction information that is displayed on a display of an external device using a mobile device associated with a user authorized to access a secure resource. The transaction method includes recovering a first seed key from two or more seed keys stored on a memory of the mobile device and establishing the identity of the merchant associated with the transaction. Lastly, the method transmits a password generated with the recovered seed key from the mobile device to an authentication system. U.S. Pat. No. 6,170,058 describes an apparatus for managing access to a cryptographically secured access-controlled datum and a computer-implemented output logic means for providing said processed access-controlled datum to a user of said apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,627,438 teaches a computer-implemented method of authenticating a customer using a trusted device by registering a mobile device as a trusted device associated with a customer account for an online resource and providing a graphical code for display by the electronic device. The identification of the mobile device as the trusted device associated with the customer account occurs via marking the security token included in the graphical code and authenticating the data indicating that the graphical code was captured from a mobile device. Lastly the mobile device is automatically signed in through the means of a hardware processor.
Asset access systems have the potential to be utilized extensively in systems where the owner of the asset does not have a human involved in the transaction. However, the need for dedicated hardware on the part of the user of the service or system will limit the widespread deployment of these asset access systems. A need exists for a non-hardware-specific system that allows users to gain access to physical assets and complete transactions for these human-less asset management and access systems.